(TNS) - As flags were being lowered to half-staff after Wednesday’s Parkland, Florida, school shooting, school administrators here were fielding telephone calls from concerned parents.

“I’m fed up with school shootings,” said Carl Murphy, an Eastmont parent who called The Wenatchee World after talking to his child’s school principal. “I want to know why anyone can walk into a school and cause whatever harm they choose.”

Similar calls and emails from parents worried about school security in the wake of the shooting that killed 17, prompted both Wenatchee and Eastmont superintendents to post letters of assurance to community and staff members.

More than 54,000 bridges along the Interstate Highway System in the United States were rated as “structurally deficient,” according to new analysis conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s (ARTBA). This was just one of many of the concerning statistics detailed by ARTBA in its 2018 Deficient Bridge Report on Jan. 29.

(Bloomberg) -- The third fatal Amtrak crash in less than two months has thrown a spotlight on delays in installing congressionally mandated technology designed to automatically slow trains and prevent collisions.

Pacific Gas & Electric says a small fire at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station in California did not affect plant safety.

According to PG&E spokesman John Lindsey, the fire that occurred last week at the Central Coast plant was the result of overheating of a motorized pump that is used to clean kelp and ocean debris.

It was not until 1970 that Congress, under President Richard Nixon, passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. There were 14,000 workplace fatalities that year. As part of the act, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, was established to set and enforce safety standards in the workplace. Since then, standards have improved and workplace fatalities have declined to less than 5,200 in 2016. Still, some jobs remain far more dangerous than others.

Today, the vast majority of working Americans are relatively safe in their work environment. Across all industries in both the public and private sectors, there were 3.6 deaths for every 100,000 full-time workers. For certain professionals, such as school teachers and administrators or writers and editors, mistakes almost never have physical ramifications, and workplace fatality rates hover just above zero.

You’ve probably heard that sitting is the new smoking. Actually, that’s a bit of a misnomer.

It’s not the sitting in and of itself that is the problem, it’s the sedentary lifestyle many people lead.

From Risk Management Monitor
November 16, 2017

Holiday parades will be marching down many U.S. city streets during the next six weeks, with millions of revelers expected to attend. And while these are historically joyous occasions, safety is a top concern for businesses located near the festivities—especially considering the high-profile violence that has recently dominated headlines. Rezwan Ali, risk solutions group head of security at Falck Global Assistance, which advises companies about security, safety and travel risks, spoke about the challenges and best practices faced by businesses and employees located near parade routes.

From Insurance Journal
November 16, 2017

The California Department of Industrial Relations has released the 2016 occupational injury and illness data on employer-reported injuries that shows nonfatal worker injured remained steady in the state.